Wednesday, November 9, 2016

CIB Breaking News - Despite his upset apparent victory yesterday in the electoral college tally, Donald Trump has shocked his supporters and the world this morning by declining the US presidency. Calling the election "fraudulent and rigged", he said

I cannot deceive the American people and accept a rigged result. The country deserves to remain ungovernable under the Constitution.

Sources close to his campaign have now disclosed some additional stunning facts that contributed to this decision:

1. Trump was actually born in Sweden. Thus not being naive born, he was never eligible to be President. Once again, Trump has single-handedly resolved the birther controversy.

2. Trump's tax returns, just published by WikiLeaks based on Russian hacking, show that his net worth is seriously negative, not the $10 billion he had always claimed. He is so deeply in debt to Russian creditors that the paltry salary of the US President would never allow him to keep menacing Russian debt collectors at bay.

3. In return for renouncing the US presidency, Trump proposes that he be allowed to plow up Arlington National Cemetery and develop it into the Trump National Golf Course on a 50-50 revenue sharing basis with the US government, along the lines of his celebrated renovation of Wollman Rink in Central Park.

Thursday, July 28, 2016

In a remarkable volte-face, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appealed to Russian state hackers to break into IRS servers and release his 30,000 missing tax returns. He has claimed until now that because of an ongoing IRS audit, he is not able to release them himself. This was considered a significant break with an unwritten tradition followed by all presidential contenders for decades, and a hint that Trump may have something really yuge to hide.

As to who leaked the internal emails of the Democratic Party, Trump said "If it is Russia – nobody knows. It could be China. It could be somebody sitting in his bed." The last observation was widely thought by insiders to be an allusion to our own Creditanstalt Intelligence Bureau.

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Theresa May has garnered accolades for the speed and professionalism with which she has interred David Cameron as British prime minister in the wake of the Brexit own goal referendum. But as the British say, "Brexits will be Brexits!"However, her appointment of Boris Johnson as foreign secretary (aka Brexit Dumpty, author of the forthcoming memoir "I didn't do it! The Brexit Story") has provoked international mirth.Apparently, all the King's horses and all the King's men could put Humpty Dumpty back together again. How well remains to be seen, however. Or was the intention to cement the "special relationship" clown to clown, so to speak, after the US elections?

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump has been eating some crow lately for tweeting a picture of his Presumptive Democratic Presidential Rival Hillary Clinton (an actually rather flattering picture, you have to admit) against a background of cash next to a six-pointed star with the text “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” After critics quickly pointed out that the six-pointed star overlaying money immediately invoked deep anti-Semitic archetypes, Trump deleted the original and retweeted it with a red circle around the text, but with some of the original points still peeking out (the Trump campaign apparently has not yet been able to hire versatile Photoshop experts from any of the Trump enterprises to recycle Trump’s campaign loans to himself). In the meantime, the original picture has been traced back to a white supremacist and anti-Semitic website, according to research by mic.com.For anyone following the rise of right-wing populism in Austria, this deliberate media provocation must seem like déjà vu all over again. In 2012, H.-C. Strache, head of the FPÖ, the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Austrian “Freedom” Party, but more accurately translated as free-market or libertarian), posted this picture on his Facebook pages:

The irony of this incident, aside from the anti-Semitism, is that it was exactly Strache’s predecessor as FPÖ chairman, Jörg Haider, who was almost single-handedly responsible for post-war Austria’s greatest bank failure, the Carinthian crony-capitalist Hypo-Alpe-Adria Bank, leaving the Austrian Federal Government to pick up the billions of Euros in bad debt. And there was not a Jewish banker in sight in this purely ‘Arian’ scandal.This failure has been likened to the 1931 failure of the Creditanstalt, which, as all readers of this blog will know, was the Lehman Bros. of the Great Depression.

Both populist politicians strenuously denied intentional anti-Semitic dog-whistling (which in Strache’s case was so unsubtle as not even to merit the designation dog-whistle, but rather was a prime candidate for the Stürmer prize of the year) and quickly taken down in the original form under protests of innocence and Ahnungslosigkeit.

1934 front page of Nazi Der Stürmernewspaper, the archetype of modern anti-Semitic propaganda. Headline: “Jewish Plot to Exterminate Non-Jewish Humanity Revealed!” The plotters have certainly been taking their time, but that hasn’t prevented anti-Semites from constantly recycling the charge, particularly after financial crises.

But while one could argue that this kind of anti-Semitism is so deeply embedded in the world’s collective, Jungian archetypical subconscious that there is no hope of exterminating it even after the Holocaust, there is still a problem here. Most contemporary right-wing populist parties, whatever their original roots, have been making efforts to distinguish themselves from the traditional anti-Semitic right. After all, there are much more promising targets for populist discontent today, such as ‘radical Islam,’ or all Muslims, or Mexicans, or even Polish plumbers. ‘Enlightened’ right-wingers like the FN’s Marine Le Pen have gone to considerable lengths to distance herself from her father’s traditional anti-Semitism. And there are powerful and well-established Jews in their countries who, when they are not busy plotting to exterminate the rest of humanity, might just have some spare change (think Sheldon Adelson) and political sympathies for right-wing populism .

Even the FPÖ’s H-C Strache has gone to the trouble of visiting Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center and try to establish ties with right-wing Israelis, on common anti-Islamic grounds. Yet to demonstrate his respect, instead of a Jewish yarmulke he wore the cap of his German-national, duelling fraternity, seen by many right-wingers as a clever back-handed provocation.

Nor does anyone think that Donald Trump, who together with his father made his fortune by renting apartments to predominantly Jewish tenants (while claiming to be of Swedish rather than German descent) and by being a crony of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, with which the Jewish Mayors Abe Beame and Ed Koch were associated, is personally anti-Semitic. Nevertheless, these dog-whistle and not so dog-whistle exercises in anti-Semitism cannot be unintentional (no one is that stupid), but they have one thing in common that populists love: publicity. Deniable publicity to the general public, winking and pandering publicity to their extreme-right audiences, but in any case free publicity.

Sunday, July 3, 2016

The original Edict of Potsdam (left) from 1685 may be renewed for all British refugees regardless of race or religion. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in that year, French dragonnades began coercing French Protestants to convert to Catholicism (right).

CIB Breaking News, VIENNA -- A German government spokesperson said yesterday that the 1685 Edict of Potsdam may be renewed to allow Brexit refugees from Great Britain to resettle in Germany. The original Edict was promulgated to resettle Huguenot (French Protestant) refugees escaping persecution after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes that same year. Some 400,000 are thought to have fled France for Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, Prussia, Switzerland, and overseas colonies, bringing with them valuable scientific, technological and entrepreneurial skills. Among them were such luminaries as Denis Papin, who first developed the principle of the atmospheric steam engine.

The first piston steam engine (left), developed by Huguenot refugee Denis Papin in 1690 in Germany and then brought by him to England, where it probably influenced Newcomen’s first practical 1712 steam engine (right).

Apart from humanitarian grounds, the German government hopes to reap important economic benefits from the migration of highly skilled British workers fleeing the decades of chaos expected to follow from the invocation of the EU Article 50 exit clause (“Revocation of the Edict of Lisbon”), much as Prussia and Britain did by welcoming Huguenots.

It still remains to be seen who will play the role of Louis XIV in a future British government after Boris “Brexit Dumpty” Johnson said that it “cannot be me”. The German spokesperson placed the decision in the context of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “wir schaffen das” liberal immigration and asylum policy, despite opposition from anti-immigrant AfD and Pegida movements. The spokesperson went on to state

It’s a good sign that the youth of Great Britain are more clever than their bizarre political elite. For that reason we can’t raise our drawbridge on them. We have to think now about what we can offer Great Britain’s younger generation. (The Guardian 3 July)

The German government is even considering extending personal asylum offers to prominent Brexit opponents, such as the Financial Times’ satirical columnist Robert Shrimsley, who in his column on July 1 decrying the referendum result wrote

I realise that this may look like the much-derided elitist metropolitan sneering. I do, indeed, live in a London bubble in which none of my friends voted out. And you know what? That’s just how I like it. After Thursday, that London bubble looks even more attractive. It is surely a badge of honour that no one close to me is foolish enough to have believed anything Boris Johnson told them.

The unnamed German spokesperson said that the German government would be happy to create a “Berlin bubble” attractive to such Brexit opponents as Shrimsley should they find the obtuseness of their compatriots increasingly unbearable.In an indication of future problems, however, an AfD spokesperson immediately objected that Germany is already full of degenerate (“entartet”), uppity Jewish refugee satirists, such as Wladimir Kaminer:

Saturday, July 2, 2016

Tweedledum and TweedledeeAgreed to have a battle;For Tweedledum said TweedledeeHad spoiled his nice new rattle.Just then flew down a monstrous crow,As black as a tar-barrel;Which frightened both the heroes so,They quite forgot their quarrel.

(English nursery rhyme)

The backstabbing and self-immolation of leading Brexit Leave politicians Michael Gove and Boris Johnson (aka Brexit Dumpty) has not seen its like on the British stage since Macbeth and Hamlet.

But was it all a tempest in a teapot, with Theresa May now prepared to inter them both as Conservative Party leader?

One again, Lewis Carroll seems to have had the last word on the Gove/Johnson spat:

“Of course you agree to have a battle?” Tweedledum said in a calmer tone.

“I suppose so,” the other sulkily replied, as he crawled out of the umbrella: “only she must help us to dress up, you know.”

So the two brothers went off hand-in-hand into the wood, and returned in a minute with their arms full of things— such as bolsters, blankets, hearth-rugs, table-cloths, dish-covers and coal-scuttles. “I hope you’re a good hand at pinning and tying strings?” Tweedledum remarked. “Every one of these things has got to go on, somehow or other.”

Alice said afterwards she had never seen such a fuss made about anything in all her life—the way those two bustled about—and the quantity of things they put on—and the trouble they gave her in tying strings and fastening buttons— “Really they’ll be more like bundles of old clothes than anything else, by the time they’re ready!” she said to herself, as he arranged a bolster round the neck of Tweedledee, “to keep his head from being cut off,” as he said.

“You know,” he added very gravely, “it’s one of the most serious things that can possibly happen to one in a battle— to get one’s head cut off.”

Alice laughed loud; but she managed to turn it into a cough, for fear of hurting his feelings.

“Do I look very pale?” said Tweedledum, coming up to have his helmet tied on. (He called it a helmet, though it certainly looked much more like a saucepan.)

“Well—yes—a little,” Alice replied gently.

“I’m very brave generally,” he went on in a low voice: “only to-day I happen to have a headache.”

“And I’ve got a toothache!’ said Tweedledee, who had overheard the remark. “I’m far worse off than you!”

“Then you’d better not fight to-day,” said Alice, thinking it a good opportunity to make peace.

“We must have a bit of a fight, but I don’t care about going on long,” said Tweedledum. “What’s the time now?”

Tweedledee looked at his watch, and said “Half-past four.”

“Let’s fight till six, and then have dinner,” said Tweedledum.

(Through the Looking-Glass And What Alice Found There, 1871, pp. 86 – 88)

Now that British PM David Cameron has announced his resignation, it is clear that the Leavers will have to form a new government, negotiate the actual break with the EU, and make good on their myriad miraculous promises. Such as that the £350 million pounds the UK supposedly transferred net per week to Brussels would now be a windfall ready to be redeployed as a domestic welfare bounty.

But already, prominent Leavers are backpedaling, like UKIP's Nigel Farage, who now claims he never said this sum would be available for investment in the National Health Service, according to yesterday's Independent.

Thus a more fitting metaphor for the next stage of the Brexit process is the English nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.All the king's horses and all the king's menCouldn't put Humpty together again.

Alice's repartee with Humpty Dumpty from Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" seems even more appropriate to characterize the semantic confusion around the Brexit debate:

"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't—till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' " "But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected. "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. "They've a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they're the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That's what I say!"

Friday, June 24, 2016

English squad kit may not be the most stylish, but it is leading by example. Image: Guardian

CIB breaking news: Coachs from all participating teams have committed their players to only attempt own goals from now on, out of respect for yesterday's Brexit vote.

German coach Joachim Löw said that "in view of the recent turn in EU public sentiment, own goals were a more fitting reflection of what the electorate wants than traditional scoring. Own goals are now clearly the way to go in European football."

Meanwhile, the BBC reports that the Brexit vote has sparked calls in other EU countries for similar referenda on leaving the union. Populist parties in France, Italy and the Netherlands apparently now smell blood.

In Manchester, New Hampshire on June 13, Donald Trump (right) pointed out he had correctly predicted after the May 28 rampage of radical silverback gorilla Harambe (left) in Cincinnati that yesterday’s tragedy in Orlando would happen (all the more remarkable since it had not yet happened at the time of the speech). Photo left: Handout/Reuters via The Guardian; right: AFP/Getty via Politico

I predicted this would happen on May 28, but FBI alligator trappers have had their hands tied by the animal rights politically correct Obama administration. He won’t even say “radical animalistic terrorism”! He doesn’t get it, or he gets it better than anybody understands.

Trump asserts in his speech that it can hardly be a coincidence that the silverback gorilla, the alligator, and Obama all come from Africa, although the reviled “mainstream press” has repeatedly pointed out that all three were demonstrably born in the United States, and that alligators are not even native to Africa.

He goes on to say that “as long as we don’t know what is going on, as president I will ban the entry of all wild animals into the United States. We can't afford to be politically correct anymore.”

To forestall criticism that this is a form of animal racism, Trump points out that he employs hundreds of “domesticated animals” at his Mar-a-Lago private club in Palm Beach, Florida. But the club has had a long-standing policy against employing alligators, gorillas, or indeed any other wild animals from outside the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Donald Trump apologized to London's newly elected mayor Sadiq Khan today for proposing that he might be made an "exception" to any future ban on Muslims entering the US should Trump be elected president. Khan had already rejected the offer.Trump said that he had been under the mistaken impression that the Right Honourable Sadiq Khan "was a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan" because of the similarity of the two exotic expressions. Now that the mayor has outed himself as a non-Klan Muslim-Khan, the exception would have to be revoked, Trump told one of our Creditanstalt Information Bureau reporters.Trump claimed his congenital Alliterative Memory Disorder was responsible for the confusion.This is not the first time that auditory difficulties have gotten Trump into awkward situations regarding the Klan, according to knowledgeable sources. Last February, for example, he claimed that a faulty earpiece was behind his failure to disavow the support of white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke during a CNN interview.Trump emphasized that an exception could only be entertained if Mayor Khan were willing to don the appropriate attire and give the "Trump salute" at one of his rallies. Moreover, Trump suggested that Khan claim to be of less threatening Indian rather than Pakistani descent, just as he and his father Fred Trump had claimed to be of Swedish, not German descent. (Image: Mirror Co.)

About Me

I'm a research economist at UNU-MERIT (Maastricht, The Netherlands) and IIASA (Laxenburg, Austria) with a specialization in the economics of innovation, complex dynamics, economic growth and evolutionary economics. By the 2008 world crisis at the latest it became clear that macroeconomics, financial markets and economic policy cannot be entrusted anymore to mainstream economists. Hence this blog.